A visitor takes a selfportrait in front of the 4th power block of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant on April 18, 2011. In the heart of Chernobyl, Ukrainian specialists regularly venture inside the concrete cover sheltering the ruined reactor after it exploded on April 26, 1986 to check its structure and radiation levels. AFP PHOTO / SERGEI SUPINSKY (Photo credit should read SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP/Getty Images)
A visitor takes a selfportrait in front of the 4th power block of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant on April 18, 2011. In the heart of Chernobyl, Ukrainian specialists regularly venture inside the concrete cover sheltering the ruined reactor after it exploded on April 26, 1986 to check its structure and radiation levels. AFP PHOTO / SERGEI SUPINSKY (Photo credit should read SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP/Getty Images)

Photo: Sergei Supinsky, AFP/Getty Images

A visitor takes a selfportrait in front of the 4th power block of...

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In this photograph taken on October 2, 2011 Indian passengers arrive from Austria at the Rajasansai International Airport on a Comtel Air flight in Amritsar. Comtel passengers travelling from Amritsar to Birmingham via Vienna, most of them of Indian-origin, had to pay GBP 20,000 (USD 31,541) on November 13, when the airline could not afford to meet the fuel and other costs of the second leg of the journey. Authorities are seeking reassurances from Comtel after passengers claimed they were forced to fund the remainder of their trip back to Britain. AFP PHOTO/ NARINDER NANU (Photo credit should read NARINDER NANU/AFP/Getty Images)
(FILES) In this photograph taken on October 2, 2011 Indian passengers arrive from Austria at the Rajasansai International Airport on a Comtel Air flight in Amritsar. Comtel passengers travelling from Amritsar to Birmingham via Vienna, most of them of Indian-origin, had to pay GBP 20,000 (USD 31,541) on November 13, when the airline could not afford to meet the fuel and other costs of the second leg of the journey. Authorities are seeking reassurances from Comtel after passengers claimed they were forced to fund the remainder of their trip back to Britain. AFP PHOTO/ NARINDER NANU (Photo credit should read NARINDER NANU/AFP/Getty Images)

Photo: Narinder Nanu, AFP/Getty Images

In this photograph taken on October 2, 2011 Indian passengers...

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A body scan will determine body composition, with an emphasis on fat tissue. The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey caravan has rolled into San Francisco, Calif. They present the most comprehensive survey of health and nutrition in the country and will begin shortly to study locals with a special emphasis on the Asian population.

By now you've probably heard about the TSA inspector who took time out from leering at images in the new full-body scanners to leave a handwritten note commenting on a passenger's choice of, um, vacation accessories.

If that had been the strangest incident in travel during 2011, we would have chalked it up as a fairly normal year. But this was also the year military jets were put on high alert because a commuter-airline pilot was taking too long in the bathroom. It was the year of radioactive tourist attractions. And it was the year Ryanair came up with an idea even worse than charging to use the lavatories.

It was, to sum it up, the year travelers the world over got their collective freak on.

But he did wipe down the sink as a courtesy to the next passenger

Fighter jets were put on alert during a terrorism scare over New York's LaGuardia Airport in November after the pilot of a commuter airline got stuck in the lavatory.

A Chautauqua Airlines flight was nearing LaGuardia on a flight from Asheville, N.C., when the pilot ducked out of the cockpit for a quick bathroom break, the New York Post reported. The lavatory door jammed, and the pilot banged on it for several minutes from inside before a passenger came to investigate. The pilot asked the passenger to go explain things to the co-pilot.

But when the passenger tried to shout through the closed cockpit door, the jittery co-pilot radioed to air traffic controllers that "the captain disappeared in the back, and, uh, I have someone with a thick foreign accent trying to access the cockpit."

The pilot was eventually able to kick open the restroom door and radio that all was well before the fighter jets were scrambled into the air.

My ficus went on vacation and all I got were these aphids

Madrid residents who feel their houseplants deserve a vacation of their own can now send their African violets and orchids to the new Hotel Para Plantas, which is, as the name says, a hotel just for plants.

The hotel, which opened in the Islazul Shopping Center in July, verges on a spa, according to AOL Travel: Each plant gets its own botanist to look after it.

"Customers who miss their plants or want to verify they are healthy can watch them" on the hotel's streaming website, said spokeswoman Marisol Garcia.

On the bright side, it will keep pilots from getting trapped inside

Ryanair, which we suspect exists primarily to provide fodder for year-end weird-travel-news roundups, elicited sighs of relief when it said it had abandoned plans to charge passengers to use the lavatory. Instead, the Irish budget airline announced it would remove most of its restrooms altogether.

As reported in Britain's Daily Mail in October, Ryanair unveiled plans to eliminate two of the three lavatories on its planes, allowing it to squeeze in as many as six extra seats. Apparently, the paper reported, there is no law requiring airplanes to have restrooms at all.

That'll be $800 for the ticket and $31,500 for the fuel surcharge

When Comtel Air, an Austrian charter airline, went out of business in November, stranded passengers on a flight from Amristar, India, to Birmingham, England, had to cough up $31,500 to pay for fuel, the BBC reported.

The flight was on a stopover in Vienna when it was announced the airline had gone broke. The 180 passengers on board were escorted to ATMs in the terminal to withdraw gas money to get the plane back into the air. The bankrupt airline has vowed to reimburse them - someday.

A sequel for New Yorkers: "What the #$%@# You Lookin' At?"

In Japan, apparently, it's not unusual for riders to gawk unabashedly at foreigners. Arni Kristjansson, an Icelandic musician and DJ living in Japan, got tired of this, so he created a fake book jacket he could wrap around whatever he was reading at the time.

In big, bold Japanese characters, the book jacket's title asked: "Why Do Japanese People Stare at Foreigners?"

The reaction, CNN reported, was "for the most part, laughter."

Second place was spending six hours stuck on the tarmac

This wasn't a real-life version of Tom Hanks in "The Terminal," though. Mah beat out 159 other entrants to win a contest celebrating the airport's 80th birthday. And he didn't have to spend his night on benches in departure lounges. He got a suite at the Fairmont Vancouver Airport Hotel with floor-to-ceiling views of the runways.

Armed with a digital video camera, Mah posted regular reports about his adventures on Facebook, Twitter and his own blog. He learned which VIP lounges serve the best food, had his teeth fixed at the airport's dental office and visited its wildlife operations center.

"A lot of people," she said, "don't realize what goes on at an airport."

Baggage screener to get his freak on in the unemployment line

The TSA announced in October that it would fire the baggage screener at Newark Liberty International Airport who found a sex toy in a woman's checked luggage and left a note urging the owner to "Get your freak on girl."

The owner, a New York lawyer and feminist blogger, posted a picture of the note on her Twitter account.

She wrote that her initial reaction was: "Total violation of privacy, wildly inappropriate and clearly not ok, but I also just died laughing in my hotel room."

The woman urged the TSA not to fire the screener, saying he or she shouldn't be scapegoated for a much larger problem.

"The problem with the note," she wrote on her blog, "is that it's representative of the bigger privacy intrusions that the U.S. government, through the TSA and other sources, levels every day."

Now you can smell like Lithuania without the bother of going there

Launched in January, the perfume "Lithuania" is a blend of sandalwood, cedar and musk. It's intended, according to a report in the British newspaper The Independent, to "connote the Indo-European origins of the Lithuanian language as well as Lithuanian strength of character."

This despite a less-than-rave review from Stephen Colbert, who said it "smells like a goat slaughtered at a lesbian drum circle."

In the man's defense, he did remove his shoes first

Turned back at security because he didn't have a photo ID, a Columbia University researcher leaped over the check-in counter at New York's JFK Airport and tried to ride the luggage conveyor belt onto the plane.

In an online profile, the New York Post reported last January, the man said he specialized in researching "human impatience."

Let's just call it a case of airborne ad nauseum

Spirit Airlines is now selling advertising space on its air-sickness bags.

For $18,500 you can promote your product - Pepto Bismol? Alka Seltzer? Spray 'n Wash? - to nauseated people fumbling for a place to hurl their lunch, according to an October report in USA Today.

Why air-sickness bags? It's apparently because the airline has already sold ad space on every other conceivable surface. For $119,000 you can advertise on tray tables for three months, according to the report. For $196,000 you can paint your corporate message on the outsides of overhead bins, and for $14 million you can plaster your company's logo on the exterior of every Spirit Airlines jet for a year.

It's part of a trend in which airlines are planning to sell ad space on everything from flight attendants' aprons to pre-flight videos.

"We provide an environment where cell phones are turned off and the consumer is stationary with the ability to focus on nothing but your brand for an average of three hours," she said.

Finally, a reason to wear deodorant on airplane flights

At Sydney Airport, the alarms on the newly installed state-of-the-art full-body scanners were set off by sweaty armpits.

As reported by the website news.com.au in July, the second person to be scanned by the machine set off its alarm three times. After determining that he had no hidden metal on his body, airport security officials blamed the problem on the passenger's underarm perspiration.

Virgin men get in free next door at the "Star Wars" convention

Organizers of a floral festival in China's Hunan Province in September offered free admission to women on two conditions: They had to be under 22, and they had to be virgins.

The Zhouluo Wild Osmanthus Fragrans Festival celebrates the plant otherwise known as the tea olive, which organizers compared to a "pure and simple female," according to a report in the Global Post.

Women were required to present valid picture IDs confirming their ages. As to that other thing, marketing director Zhou Lushen said, "We are simply trusting in their honesty."

But all those guys in pointy hats at the Vatican are real popes, right?

Visitors outside Rome's Coliseum in August were treated to a wooden-sword-swinging battle between groups of gladiators. What they were witnessing was a sting operation in which undercover police dressed in red tunics, metal breastplates and fringed helmets busted a group of bogus gladiators who has been intimidating and extorting tourists.

For years now, the faux gladiators have been preying on tourists, posing for pictures and then demanding as much as 50 euros ($67), often confiscating the victims' cameras until the money is paid. Others take money for bogus tours that never happen. Tourists who complain have been threatened with bodily harm.

According to the Daily Mail, stunned tourists looked on as the fake gladiators were wrestled to the ground by the undercover cops. Twenty to 30 were arrested, according to various press reports.

Give it a few years and Fukushima will have a gold mine on its hands

Visitors are coming back with glowing reports about Ukraine's hottest new tourist attraction: Chernobyl.

In February, according to the Wall Street Journal, the government formally opened the site of the 1986 nuclear disaster to tour groups. Nearly 6,000 people a year were already visiting the site illegally. A government spokeswoman said experts were developing official tour routes that were "medically safe."

Funny, when she tried this with Zunes, they waved her right through

An arriving passenger who seemed to be walking with difficulty through Israel's Ben-Gurion International Airport drew suspicion from customs agents, and a search turned up a few smuggled iPhones in her stockings.

Well, more than a few: 44 of them, to be precise.

The woman, an Israeli citizen in her 60s, was on a flight from London and for unexplained reasons was wearing a traditional Georgian outfit, the website Haaretz reported last January.

OK, maybe the TSA's use of a sleeper hold was a bit excessive

Jesse "The Body" Ventura, the former Minnesota governor and professional wrestler, filed a lawsuit against the Transportation Security Agency in January after being subjected to a pat-down search.

Ventura, who rose to fame by appearing on national television shirtless and in tights while hitting opponents over the head with folding chairs, said in his suit that the pat-down "exposed him to humiliation."